Masks and Heart Attacks
He tried to keep his heart rate semi-normal as he followed Eddie, but the more he saw of the firehouse, the harder that was becoming. More memories came to Buck as they made their way towards the communal space and kitchen upstairs. No matter how bad it had gotten here with his fire family, it was a damn sight better than being trapped in that compound, but that didn’t make the memories hurt any less. However, he hadn’t known the truth back then. The awful state he was in, in the days just before he had been dragged kicking and screaming away from here and the family that wasn’t really his family at the time, he hadn’t known that things could be so much worse. Until they were.
Each step up the stairs took him closer to that feeling of dread he had forgotten after 2 years, bringing it closer like it was yesterday rather than 2 years ago. If he reached out he could grasp that fear, that remorse, that doubt. He thought that was what hurt the most about going back. He wanted to make amends, repair the damage, but to everyone else, there wasn’t any damage there to repair. Like he had broken a vase and then glued it back together before anyone could see. He knew the cracks were there, but no one else did.
— Flashback —
Buck was driving home alone in the misty fog of a new morning when he began to wonder how his life had come to this. He thought about the 118 and how quickly they could change their opinion of him. How had the last few months completely turned the tide of his life and swept him so far away from his found family?
Maybe it was better if he did leave. He didn’t want to and he couldn’t believe it could come to this but maybe he needed to leave the 118. It was what he knew best, after all. He ran away from commitment and bad news his whole life, so of course he would run away from a completely destroyed family. He was good at it, good at faking it until he made it, but he didn’t know when he would finally be able to stop. It wasn’t that long ago that he was beginning to think the 118 was where he could stop. But what did he know? When he really thought about it, he couldn’t see how it had ever been. Not really. He was happy, sure, but maybe that was a delusion, too.
All Buck had ever wanted was to be free to be himself. Not Evan, or Buck, or Ev or Bucky. He wanted to be himself. He just wasn’t sure who that was. He wasn’t sure he had ever known. He had never been given the opportunity to find that out. When he had joined the academy and the team he thought he had finally figured it out. But, if he was being honest with himself, it was just another fantasy. Like the one in the picture books he read on the superheroes and Avilions. The fairy tales.
Buck arrived at his apartment block and stared at the building. Was this him? Was this life the right one? Did these bricks and wood and cast iron bars of the balconies make him a real person? Did the walk up the stairs towards the loft make him real? The weight of the key in his hand as he unlocked the door? The thump his bag made on the kitchen counter? None of it made him feel real. All of it made him feel more like a fantasy he had created to fit the new mould that had been fabricated when he moved to New York. He had never felt real and it was becoming harder and harder to believe he was.
He sat down at the piano bench in the corner of the loft as he tried to think about what made him real. The screech of the bench across the wooden floors? That sound had always been real in the many lives he had created for himself. The thud of the piano lid had always felt safe and familiar. So had the dark and rich sounds that came from pressing the keys as he began to play without even realising. But as a new melody started to play, and the words began to pour out of Buck’s mouth, he could only think about all the fantasies he had created for himself. And how none of them had truly been real.
The first character in the soap opera that was his life was Evan. The original. The boy his parents had begun to mould the day he was born. The extra child. The saviour sibling. Named after his doctor because his parents didn’t spend too much time thinking about what to call the spare parts. Evan had always been his family's second thought the first few years as Daniel was sick. The spare parts stashed in the house ready to be used when the better model was broken and needed repairing. But Evan had been broken, too. Evan didn’t do his job. Evan had gone through several surgeries before he could even walk or talk but that hadn’t been enough. So, Evan became the perfect suburban son for a while. Blue eyed, blonde hair, with perfect grades and athletic to boot. The perfect son who never put a foot out of line. But Evan wasn’t enough. Evan was always alone. Always unwanted. So Evan had died and a new person was formed with the remains.
Next came Ev. Ev was a more rebellious and adventurous version of Evan. He was much freer and easy going. Ev wanted to explore the world. He wanted to explore different cultures and ways of life because maybe one of those was where he would finally feel he belonged. Evan never felt that. Ev had spent his time jumping from country to country, from state to state. He lived on a cattle ranch in the heart of Texas and thought for a moment that being a cowboy was his calling, but that wasn’t real. He herded sheep in Iceland for a while. He became a student Chef at a top restaurant in Cape Town. He had a go at being a surf instructor in Australia. Yet, those lives weren’t real either. They all became too much eventually. So Ev would move on to somewhere new. That’s what Ev did, he experienced and then moved on. He decided that he didn't want roots. Didn’t need them. Ev had lived for 5 years until the ripe age of 23. Then he had burnt to ashes too, just like Evan.
Buck was the third full attempt at a new life. Buck was the character in the soap opera determined to make something of himself. He was determined to stick around in one place for a while and finally do some good. Evan and Ev had never focused on doing good. Maybe that was where he was going wrong. Buck decided he wanted to be a firefighter the minute he arrived in New York. He joined the fire academy and spent six months training and completing test after test while working odd shifts at a local bar to make ends meet. Buck was going to be the version everyone loved, but it had been the version that loved too much. The version that hooked up with anything around him that offered. Buck was also the version that thought physical actions were the pinnacle of love, and love was how roots were created. Buck really wanted to put down roots this time, but these were the wrong roots. These roots were gnarled and twisted and rotten and it was best to dig them up, burn them, and toss their ashes away. So that's what he did.
Buckaroo was the most short lived fantasy. This version wasn’t even his fantasy; it was somebody else’s. Everybody else’s. Buckaroo was his life at the 118. Buckaroo was a beloved son, brother, and friend who had put everyone else first and was always happy to help. Buckaroo was a free spirit and life of the party, because while everyone else around him was older and had to be so serious, Buckaroo could just look at the fun rather than the dread. Buckaroo was such a fleshed out, carefree character that others had given a cute nickname. Buckaroo was a parody of a parody. It was someone who had been awarded existence from Evan’s many identities, from his lies and deceit, and he couldn’t let those rotten roots find ground in any of the leftover remnants. Especially because he wanted it to be real. He wanted it to be real so bad that he couldn’t let it last knowing that it was born from a Grimm fairy tale.
Bucky was his favourite fantasy. He wasn’t real. He had known that from the beginning. But he had loved it anyway. Bucky had been moulded by Christopher. Bucky had been the father figure, the fun uncle, the superhero all wrapped into one. Bucky had been the person he had wanted when he was Chris’ age. But the person that had never been part of his life. Bucky knew all these amazing random facts about penguins and space. Bucky had helped with homework and school trips and projects. Bucky had cooked amazing meals for his family and read stories to his kid before he tucked him in at night and joined his partner on the couch for some mind numbing TV after a long shift. Bucky had been a family man with Christopher and Eddie. Bucky felt the most real for a time and had the most roots. He couldn’t last, though, as Shannon had begun to dig up those roots the minute she set foot in New York wanting her family back. The investigation had just been that final yank out of the ground.
Bucky had turned into Buckley, so similar except for one big difference, Buckley was alone. Just like Evan, Buckley had no one but himself. No matter what Buckley did, it was never enough. The 118 made Buckley more real than most. That was what had crushed him in the end, and why Buckley had to burn. Buckley couldn't be the final character in this tale. He just couldn’t.
When he sat down and thought about it, no one had been real, but they had all been real in the same way. Each version must have had something of his real self in there, but they had never fully formed. All wearing a mask of his creation. It’s hard to be you when you’ve always been told who you are and never figured out the truth from the fabrication. Evan had been the studious version of himself that loved to learn and study and grow his mind. Ev had been the adventurous version. The version that loved to explore new cultures and worlds. Buck was the version that loved to help and save others, because the real version of himself had never had that. Buckaroo had been the one to look after and protect his loved ones in any way they needed. Bucky had been the caregiver, the nurturer. Bucky had been the family man he never knew could exist, and had been the most natural version of himself, thanks to Chris. Buckley had been the catalyst. Buckley had been the version of himself that could stand up for himself and show others who he could really be. They all made some odd mix of a human being. An odd mix of a real person. Evan Buckley. Maybe he could give this person a go and could forge the pieces together to create a complete person. Now he just had to decide. Where was that person going to put down roots?
---
Buck remembered feeling like he needed to run as far as possible after that day. Afterall, he was an expert at it. He had run to TK as soon as there was even a small reason for why he might be needed. He ran to Texas, like the coward he was, to be with TK when TK was struggling with his addiction. He used TK as some vain attempt at an excuse for why he needed to leave New York fast, even when Buck knew his own actions were the real reason. He wished he hadn’t in the end but was also glad he did. Texas may have been his downfall. It may have been their doom. Texas was the last place he had seen before he woke up surrounded by the stark grey walls of his room at the compound. He remembered thinking at the beginning, when the first hits had come, how at least he was punished for his crimes. That he deserved every drop of blood and every bruise. He only wished the others hadn’t been punished along with him.
He was glad when the bell finally rang, throwing him out of his own thoughts as he raced to the truck. He threw his coffee mug in the sink as he raced past. It was never a great feeling to realise you were happy when the bell rang. The bell meant someone else's day was truly awful but right now he needed it. He always found comfort in the blaring sound of the bell, it meant he was being useful. It meant he was doing something good.
Captain Nash (Bobby, he had to chastise himself to be friendly again) pulled him from his thoughts with details of a car crash. A head on collision as a car had swerved without warning into the wrong lane and gone barrelling head first into another. It was easy to judge the driver of the first car as drunk or a drug addict, but Buck knew sometimes there was more to the story. He was proven right when it turned out the driver of the swerving car had a sudden heart attack behind the wheel. He hadn’t been able to control his own actions and had been pronounced dead on arrival. There was nothing his team could do but check on the driver and passengers in the other car and begin to clean up the mess. The heart was a funny thing. It brought so much love to the world, but also so much pain.
As they drove back to the station in silence, Buck’s cell dinged with a message. Looking down, a smile came across his face. He didn’t know how to cope with his new life yet and the old people in it, but there was something good about it.
Elijah and Gabriel safe
Speak soon
TK
That good thing was his siblings.Three down, seven to go. They were safe. His little brothers were safe.Buck didn’t think he had ever felt so relieved. Maybe there was some hope after all.